Posted on 2011/04/18

Alek nods as Joe comes up and opens the gate, and takes a seat on the stairs as Joe untacks and brushes down Nipper and Merry. “That was a right pickle of a problem you dropped on our guardhouse,” he says casually. “Not a speck of peace there for the last few days, what with those folk being swarmed over by those looking for a solution. Nothing doing, apparently. Not by anyone here anyway - we're not strong enough.”

“So why are you after me?” Joe asks. “Not like I can do anything if all your resources aren't enough.”

Alek looks down. “This is an unofficial visit. Or - officially unofficial at least, which is why it's me here and not the Captain. Can we take it inside?”

Joe fills the hay nets and water troughs and then nods. “Come on then.” He takes the steps two at a time and unlocks the house door, shifting to one side to let Bramble race past and then leading the way to his sitting area. He straddles a bench, plants one elbow on the table, tickles Bramble's ears with the other and waits for Alek to spit whatever it is he wants to say.

Alek perches on the other bench. “Thing is,” he says, “Captain can't be seen to ask for outside help. Not until we know what happened and how to fix it. And the priests say the only person who can figure and fix it lives in a place called Hafumin.” He looks up at Joe with embarrassment clear in his face. “Normally, I'd get packed off there with a message, but it's not a place someone like me can get to or get into easily. The adventurers we might have asked have all bummed off somewhere else, and we heard a rumour you knew where it was…”

Joe nods curtly. “I had escort duty there once.” He decides not to mention he was escorting young pegasi.

“So you do know where to find it? Do you know if they'll let you in?”

“They might. One or two know me even if they don't like humans.”

Alek heaves a relieved sigh. “Thank the gods. If you hadn't I don't know what we'd have done. Gone mad perhaps. It's been madhouse enough over there for it.” He pulls a sealed message from inside his tunic and places it carefully on the table between them. “Here's the message. Are you sure you can take it safely there.”

Joe just looks at it and nods. “Payment?”

“Can't do much directly, but we'll make it know you have the favour of the guard. That'll put more work your way.”

Joe thinks about the pouch of money he took off the idiots and decides that might pay for it, even if he will have to change the coinage somewhere. “Oh, all right,” he grumbles. “But don't get into the habit of expecting me to work for free. I have a living to earn…”

Posted on 2011/05/02

Joe slips out of town early, weaving his way through the crowd coming in to join the hiring line, and heads north. He remembers it took a week on foot to reach Hafumin and although he has the cart this time, he plans to hunt as he goes for food and any skins worth catching at this time of year. Each night he stops early to set snares and each morning leaves a little late so that he can check and collect any overnight catch. On the second day he moves cautiously, remembering the giant bees that had been there before, but sees nothing. By the fourth day he begins to relax on the empty road, but late on the fifth he hears someone bawling a song ahead and hooves thudding unevenly against the packed dirt of the road itself.

Joe jumps down onto the edge of the road and hastily strips off Nipper's pack. “Don't suppose you'd condescend to see who's there?” Joe mutters to himself.

Nipper snickers wordlessly, tosses his head and trots a few paces ahead. Moments later he backs into view. “Some drunk blocking the path. Coming this way.”

Joe grumbles under his breath and gropes for a handful of rocks as well loosening his knives ready to draw. Bramble looks at them and whines, before wandering across the road to investigate a bush.

The singing draws nearer, as do the hooves. Joe takes a moment to lead Merry and the cart to the edge of the road so that a single rider can get past. But when the singer comes into view there is something wrong about the shape of the horse. And the rider above it sways and breaks off the singing to stare at them, a jug held in one hand, sword and bow criss-crossing the back and a pouch loosely belted around its waist. Except, Joe realises, shaking himself free of his own stare, it isn't a rider, it's a male centaur. Still just as drunk by the look of it. And as Joe looks, the centaur slurs a challenge and yanks its sword from its sheath.

The only word Joe recognises is the elvish for 'human', but the appearance of the sword is enough for him to drop into a defensive crouch and snatch out a dagger. Bramble whips round and begins to stalk towards the centaur's hocks, while Nipper paces forward to face the sword and hooves.

The sword swishes past Nipper to slam into Joe's side, knocking the breath completely out of him and causing his knife to fly away in the wrong direction. Nipper spins round and lets fly with both hind hooves at the line where the centaur's human body joins its horse body. The centaur staggers a little under Nipper's blow and Bramble's snap hits only thin air.

Joe backs up a pace to get away from that sword, snatches another knife from his bandolier and hurls it. The short blade slices across the centaur's left shoulder and it squeals and tries to rear so that it can bring both hooves and blade down on Nipper. The only effect is that its unsteady legs slide out from under it and it hits the ground in a furious, thrashing heap. Nipper looks back at it, snickers wickedly, and applies hooves to the human chest instead, while Bramble latches onto one of the flailing legs.

Still gasping from the earlier blow, Joe grabs one of the rocks he gathered earlier and hurls it with all his strength. The rock crashes into the centaur's head and it keels over completely. A moment later, it begins to snore. Joe glares down at it, before stripping it of sword, bow, quiver, wine jug and the pouch. He leaves the belt in place and leads the cart past, not caring if a wheel runs over the centaur's hands or tail….

Posted on 2011/05/22

Late the next day, Joe breaks out of the trees to see Hafumin's palisade and gate in front of him. He stops abruptly, and looks up to find the archer above the gate. Sure enough, there is an arrow levelled at him and a voice calls in elven, “What your name, human, and what your business with Hafumin?”

“My name is Joe Wood! I carry a message to deliver to one of your people.” Joe pulls out the sealed message and holds it up.

“Wait there, human.” The archer disappears from the wall and a minute later reappears in the gateway with another half elf guard. The archer keeps an arrow levelled at Joe while the second guard walks across and takes the letter from Joe's hand. Then both of them retreat inside and the gate closes behind them, leaving Joe still on the outside.

Joe grumbles under his breath and slides down from the cart to check over Merry and Nipper. Bramble insists on bouncing round him, tail wagging furiously and constantly in the way as Joe works.

An hour and a half later, the gate opens again just long enough for an elderly half-elf to step through. Her long white hair is bound into hundreds of thin braids, each tipped with a carved bead, and she wears loose green breeches, sandals and a wrap-around yellow shirt tied close with a green sash. She looks up at Joe and says calmly, “Sahiya vouches for you, but I understand there is urgent need for me at Freetown?”

Joe nods curtly. Inside he is swearing and wishing he knew what was in that message. What was so urgent that they couldn't let him have a bed for the night? Looking the old woman over, the only sign of luggage is a small sack tied to the left side of her sash. Not nearly enough for a week on the road.

“Well then,” the woman tells him, “lets be going. There has been a robbery on this road only yesterday, and I for one would rather be away before they catch up. Bandits are such a nuisance when they slow you down.” And with that, she shimmers all over and turns into an oversized wolf…

Posted on 2011/06/05

“Bandits?” Joe echoes.

The wolf woman just lolls out her tongue in a silent laugh and walks a short distance down the road before looking back over her shoulder at Joe. Joe growls a curse under his breath and starts getting the cart turned round to follow her. Brambles bounds up to the wolf and bounces eagerly around her, in an invitation to play. The wolf spins to keep the young dog in view and ends up chasing her own tail for a minute before sitting down with great dignity. Joe grins at the sight and nudges Merry forward.

“Lead on then, Wolf lady. But not too fast, if you don't mind. The horses have already put in a good day's work.”

The wolf woman snorts and pads off ahead of him for nearly an hour, as dusk gathers around them. Finally she turns off onto a narrow track that leads into a clearing not far from the road. Joe follows her down the track, swearing under his breath at every pothole, and then pulls the cart to a halt on the edge of the clearing and jumps down. Night is arriving fast, so Joe sets to seeing to the animals first, before the light goes completely. Having unharnessed, groomed, fed and watered Merry, Nipper and Bramble without the wolf woman lifting so much as a finger, Joe yanks his lantern out of his pack and starts digging for what's left of his own food. There isn't much of it – maybe just enough for one to get back to Freetown if he stretches it. He swears again and puts the food back, deciding he'll just have to tighten his belt and deal with it, it isn't the first time he's gone hungry.

When he turns round, the wolf has turned back into the elf-woman, and doesn't look the slightest bit ruffled by the change. Instead, she kindles a small fire in a cleared circle of ground and hands him a small pie and a bread roll. Joe takes them and bites cautiously into the pie. In his experience only don't-ask pies come sealed in this size, good pies are made larger and cut into wedges for sale. It seems to be a relatively good pie, layered with meat cheese and pickles, though he is careful not to ask anyway. In contrast the roll has had crushed fruit baked into it. He finishes both and looks back at the woman, who is eating the same. “You said something about bandits being on the road?”

The woman shrugs. “Probably nothing. One of the locals got drunk and knocked himself out on a tree. He swears he was robbed, but it wouldn't be the first time he's dropped his stuff somewhere and forgotten where.” She extends a hand to point out the animals. “You care for your beasts before yourself – always a good sign – and as I said, Sahiya vouches for you. Get some sleep, young human. The bandits won't be after you.”

Joe snorts but gets his bedroll out anyway. “And what should I be calling you, if I see something you should be aware of? Old woman?”

She throws her head back and laughs and the beads on her braids shimmer in the firelight. “You're a brave one too. You can call me Moonshadow and it will be a long day tomorrow. Rest while

Posted on 2011/07/03

Joe wakes at dawn to find Moonshadow sitting crosslegged and facing east, her eyes closed. As Joe crawls out of his bedroll, Bramble comes bouncing up to lick his face, making Joe slip and mouth curses as he pushes Bramble away. He makes it out of his bedroll at the second attempt and stirs up the fire against the dawn chill. He doles out some more of the remaining animal feed and eyes the rest. He's going to run short on that too before he gets back to Freetown, he realises and makes a mental note not to leave himself short another time. By the time he has groomed all the animals as well, the sun is high enough to shoot light between the tree trunks and Moonshadow has finally opened her eyes and begun rummaging in her sack.

She pulls out 2 flat loaves of bread and hands one to Joe. He takes it and tears some off to share with Bramble. This one doesn't seem to have been made with fruit, like yesterday's, but has honey and nuts mixed into it instead. The moment he finishes it and stands up, licking the last of the honey off his fingers, Moonshadow turns into that wolf and moves off again, leaving Joe to follow as best he can..

The next few days follow the same relentless pattern and Joe is quite glad when Freetown comes into view. Moonshadow takes elf form to enter the town, walking calmly on the opposite side of the cart to Nipper. Joe shows her the way to the guardhouse and leaves her there, heading home instead, and putting beans to soak for a meal. He heads out again on foot to get feed for the animals and replacement food for himself as well as some saddlesoap for cleaning leather and harness with and a jug of ale to go with his food.

As he works his way through the stalls he hears one woman say to a squalling child, “Yes, the ghosts are coming out of the Haunted Forest and if you don't behave, I'll get them to eat you. That's if the demon horse doesn't get you first…”

Joe bites his lip to hide his smile and hurries on wondering if he ought to tell Nipper the new story about him or if that would swell his head up past bearing with….

Posted on 2011/07/24

Late winter means that the food on offer is limited, and almost all dried or salted. To go with his ale and saddlesoap, Joe does manage to find dried peas and bread, cheese and flour, a small bag of oats, a small jar of pickled onions, 3 fresh eggs, a thick slice of salt pork and 2 winter-wrinkled apples. As he's arranging for delivery of the bulky straw, firewood and hay, it starts to snow. Joe pulls his cloak tighter around him and finishes his task before he trudges homewards, loaded down with his purchases.

No sooner has he reached home and begun to unpack then he has called down to take his other deliveries. He whistles Bramble to heel and shuts her out in the yard so that she can't eat the food he has out. He slithers down the snowy steps and pitches in to help unload. The carter recognises him from the hiring line and grins as one worker to another. Joe pays him with a matching grin, stacks the feed and straw in the storage section and doles some out to both Merry and Nipper before filling their water buckets. He stows most of the firewood beside the straw, but scoops up the last armful to take up with him.

He lights the fire and shuts the door on the growing blizzard. “Looks like we're going to be on pease pudding for a while,” he tells Bramble. “Not much food is going to get in from the farms in this weather. Still, we'll manage.” He makes himself a meal of bread, cheese and a few pickled onions, eats it and then heads out again to fetch a bucket of water in before the snow freezes the pump solid. Finally, he puts the soaked beans over the banked fire to simmer overnight and crawls into bed to sleep.

In the morning he pokes his head out of the blankets long enough to register the cold and then grumbles his way into several layers of clothing just to keep warm. After adding a bit of salt pork and herbs to the beans, he eases open the door to find a solid slope of snow where the steps should be. Joe sighs, grumbles some more and fetches his broom from the storage area. He goes cautiously out, closes the door behind him to keep the heat in and begins to sweep his way down, one step at a time.

Once down at ground level, he stomps through the snow to see to Nipper and Merry. Nipper looks him up and down and snorts. “What kept you?”

“This white stuff,” Joe retorts back. “I think it's called snow.” He mucks them out and feeds them, before making a hasty dash to the privy and a retreat up the stairs into the warmer house. It looks, he realises gloomily, as if he isn't going to be able to work for a while….

Posted on 2011/08/21

4 days later Joe manages to escape the house long enough to grab a meal at a tavern and find more supplies. Halfway through his meal of potato cakes stuffed with cheese, bacon and herbs, someone slides into the seat on the other side of his table. He looks up to see Moonshadow, in her elf form, just as she raises one eyebrow and asks. “Was this seat occupied?”

Joe shakes his head and she sets down a plate of food that matches his. “I thought you might want to know the results of my - visit - since I understand you were much involved in the reasons for it.”

Joe shrugs. “No one ever bothered to tell me results before. I’m just a carter. Once the - cargo - arrives where it’s supposed to, that’s the end of it for me.”

“This reasoning comes with a warning.” Moonshadow pauses to take a bite of food. Her free hand taps slowly against the wooden table and the beads in her hair chink softly as she turns her head to look around the tavern. Finally she swallows her mouthful and says, “The pixies in the Ghostwood are waking up. They’re the ones that make people think that wood is haunted, and they’re the ones that shot your memory-wiped group. If you ever meet any, I’d recommend treating them respectfully. Otherwise your - cargo - might end up somewhere it wasn’t meant to.”

“You mean when they finish I might not remember where to take it,” Joe growls. He looks up as the tavern door opens and a cloaked halfling comes in, shakes the snow off and heads for the bar to lay an order. Something about the halfling’s chubby outline and swaggering step is horribly familiar. It takes a few moments before Joe places him as the halfling that Nipper dumped in the muckheap so long ago.

Joe grabs his mug of small beer and buries his face in it to hide the sudden surge of laughter at the memory. The halfling might be a fool, but he’s also the Thief-Lord’s son and he might still want revenge. Laughing at him won’t help in the least.

Moonshadow looks at Joe with amusement and then casually shifts her position until she can see the halfling too. “See someone you recognise?”

Joe nods at the halfling. “Last time I saw him, he was face down in a muckheap, and swearing revenge on everyone in sight.”

Moonshadow chuckles very quietly. Joe applies himself to finishing his meal, hoping that he can get away to the market before anyone else turns up…

Posted on 2011/09/11

As Joe chews through the last piece of potato cake, the tavern door opens again and 2 humans walk through. Joe swallows hastily and washes the lump down with the last of the small beer, as the humans push back their hoods to reveal the faces of Sir Henry, the youngest of his old lord's sons, and Den. What brings a noble and a commoner together, Joe can't figure, until he realises that under the cloaks they are dressed like adventurers. His heart sinks a bit further and he ducks his head low over his empty plate as his fingers clench around around his eating knife.

Moonshadow looks at the humans as they join the halfling and her chuckle rolls through the suddenly silent tavern. “Oh my word, I can smell the bravura of a new group from over here. Nothing quite like it.” She finishes the last of her own meal, pushes herself back from Joe's table and straightens. “If you choose to slip out while I'm keeping them occupied, I will quite understand,” she murmurs, laughter still twitching her lips outwards. The beads in her hair chime gently as she turns and saunters over to the threesome. She sets a few coins down on the bar with a decisive clink. “Let me offer you a drink - and a word of advice,” she tells them.

Sir Henry turns and sneers. “What could you possibly offer us, woman? We are not common workers, we are adventurers.”

Joe sidles towards the door, but stops and turns when Moonshadow's voice rings out behind him. “My dear young human, I'll grant that I retired from adventuring years before you were born, but I haven't entirely lost touch.” She taps another coin on the bar, then slides it across to the innkeeper. “For your trouble. And as compensation for the company at your bar.” She looks back at the threesome and flicks her braided hair back in a shimmer of beads. “You're new, you three. You would do well to remember that there are old adventurers, and there are bold adventurers, but there are no old bold adventurers.” She inclines her head to the innkeeper and sweeps over to the door.

Three pairs of eyes follow her as she pauses beside Joe for a moment and her smile flickers again. Joe lifts his head and meets the triple gaze with his own distaste. Their glare switches to him and he can se the snarls growing in their faces. He bows as floridly as he knows and asks a carrying voice, “Do you desire escort again?”

The glare chills down into hate as Moonshadow returns the bow. “So kind of you to offer.”

Sir Henry yells after them, “Hey, you!”

Joe turns.

“Yes, you! What have you got to offer her that I haven't?”

“Why,” Joe retorts, “nothing. I'm just a common worker - but my mother taught me manners.” And with that, he steps through the doorway into the snow and lets the door cut off anything else Sir Henry might be saying…

This game is DMed by Heros_Backpack from the wizards.com boards. He holds the copyright to all content.

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